About the Astronomy Center

AstronomyCenter.org is a web-based databank that provides faculty with links to a wide range
of teaching and learning resources for the Undergraduate Introductory Astronomy course. All
materials are classified by their topic and activity type, and have descriptions outlining
their content. Information about authors, publishers, costs, and copyright is also provided.

Educators can use this collection to find curriculum materials, images, classroom demonstrations,
labs, online learning resources, evaluation instruments, and articles about approaches to
astronomy education. The collection can be searched by keyword or browsed by topic or type of
resource. Advanced Search with more details can also be performed.

Users of the AstronomyCenter.org are encouraged to actively participate. They may suggest
materials for the editors to include in the collection, share comments, and build personal
collections of materials. Although anyone may use the database, participation requires the
creation of a user account so that contributions can be
connected to the user. Account creation is free and requires only a name and email address.

AstronomyCenter.org is a service provided by the American Astronomical Society in collaboration
with the American Association of Physics Teachers and the ComPADRE project. It is supported, in
part, by the National Science Foundation and the American Physical Society Campaign for Physics.
Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the AAS, AAPT, APS, or the NSF.

The Editorial Process

The editorial process is summarized in this chart. The solid line in the figure is meant to
separate tasks associated with the Physical Science Resource Center (psrc.aapt.org) and the
Astronomy Center (astronomycenter.org). All metadata records will reside in a single database
at the PSRC.

Submission: Astronomy Center users may submit material for the collection. Users may
register with the PSRC/Astronomy Center by providing an e-mail address and password.

PSRC: Submitted items are filtered: inappropriate or duplicate
items are removed. The PSRC administrator (librarian) assigns a tagger
to create metadata, then approves the item, and assigns the item to a
collection, i.e., the Astronomy Center.

Editor: The editor selects the chooser who will enter
astronomy-specific metadata. The editor then approves or declines the
item for the collection. Approved items become immediately available on
Astronomy Center and the PSRC. Declined items only appear on the PSRC.
Items in the collection may then be chosen for review. Authors may
request that their items be reviewed when they submit an item or the
decision to review an item can be made later by the editor with input
form an associate editor or a member of the editorial board. The editor
sends an item to an associate editor or directly to a reviewer. The
review process may also include an assessment component if the
resource's effectiveness in the classroom has been rigorously assessed.

Associate Editor: The associate editor selects a reviewer for
each item to be reviewed. Items may be collected together by theme or by
resource author. The associate editor will work with the resource author
and the reviewer to improve the resource(s) and its metadata. At the
conclusion of a review, the associate editor submits the review and
comments to the editor.

Reviewer: A reviewer will be chosen from a pool of volunteer
astronomy educators who understand the goals of the collection, who are
experts in the content area, and who can assess an item's potential
effectiveness and ease of use. Each reviewer will have a PSRC account
and password with permission to review assigned items.

Review Criteria

The review rubric asks reviewers to consider three areas when reviewing
a site for the Astronomy Center collection: quality, potential
effectiveness and ease-of-use. The online form asks reviewers to rate
the resource as Unacceptable, Some Problems, Average and Useful, High
Quality, or Exemplary in each of the three areas and overall. The review
process is meant to be a collaborative exchange between the reviewer,
the associate editor and author. The process should encourage content
authors to improve their online resources and submit them to the
collection for wider use.

Anonymity: It is standard policy for the reviewer to remain anonymous to
everyone but the editor and associate editor. If a reviewer elects to
reveal his or her name, the author and reviewer agree to copy the editor
or associate editor on all direct correspondence between the author and
reviewer. Comments submitted via the online forms will be archived and
visible only to the associate editor and editor.